Can we have a grown-up as the next Doctor Who, please?

The number of guesses about who the new Who will be has already reached epic proportions, with journos and fans frantically trying to figure out if the 12th/13th Doctor will be non-white or female or a former character or none of the above. While famous names are being bandied about willy-nilly, the chances are that the new Doc, like the old ones, will be a relatively unfamiliar face, regardless of the colour or gender of that face.

Although I'm as fascinated as the next Whovian about the colour and gender of the newest Doctor, I'm also concerned that our next Time Lord be a stronger character, more in line with Christopher Eccleston's mature, intelligent traveller than Matt Smith's perennially chipper cheeky chappie. Smith worked well with the Ponds, since they all got to be mates together (and he wasn't quite as badly chipper back then anyway) but with Clara Oswald on the scene, he kind of went from childlike to childish. I like Clara and I like Smith's Who, but together, they were the reason that the BBC saw fit to include an episode of Doctor Who with children as main characters. 

This should not be allowed in the Whoverse. The occasional cute wee nipper to sing a song at an angry god a lá The Rings of Akhaten - totally allowed. Actual episodes featuring petulant teenagers - definitely not allowed. The reason isn't just because petulance is neither entertaining nor cute (despite what Hollywood and other powers-that-be seem to think). The reason is that instead of being a character and series that grows and evolves, Doctor Who has regressed. The very fact that the Beeb thought it could have a whole episode with kids, where there were Cybermen that hardly killed anyone and army folks as intimidating as a box of cereal, is symptomatic of the horrible deterioration of the show from family entertainment to straight-up kids' show.

The Cybermen are supposed to be bleeding terrifying. They chop bits off you and shove you in a steel body in a transformation so terrible that if you happen to remember it after the Doctor has destroyed your emotion-inhibition chip, your head will explode (The Age of Steel). And any time there are military types in Doctor Who there are conflicting aims and fireworks between Doctors and companions and the usually trigger-happy humans. Fair enough, the squad leader on Nightmare in Silver wanted to blow the planet up. But her attempt and her reasoning for it were incredibly lame as well as quite short. And she totally stood for having her command revoked by the Doctor (posing as a muckedy-muck with the help of psychic paper of course) and handed to an incongruously cheerful Clara.

Actually, poor Clara got the worst of the deal, forced to remain oddly happy despite her new position as leader of an army unit that was actually engaged in fighting. Not for her any response whatsoever to the pressures of leadership, no wrestling with guilt over sending ill-equipped squaddies to their deaths, no qualms about any of her decisions. She just sort of grinned through the whole thing, with only that one moment of concern for the kids allegedly in her charge, quickly dispatched into sunny optimism that the Doctor would sort it out.

But it's not that Clara is a bad companion. Her ability to not wander off when the Doctor says don't wander off is actually quite refreshing. But she needs a better-suited Doctor. Someone older, wiser, with a bit more gravitas that she can cheer up. When the Doctor and his companion are grinning like mad folk the whole time, it starts to seem a bit odd. At least one of them has to be a bit serious. 

And while we're at it, bring back a bit more of Doctor Who's dark side, would you? He hasn't had a serious moral dilemma in ages. His concern over Clara giving her life to become his Impossible Girl was limited to a few whispered "pleases". He didn't exactly try very hard to stop her, nor did he have any major qualms about the potential for destroying all the good things he'd ever done in trying to save her. No 'needs of the few versus the many' debates with himself, no hesitation, just immediate action, like a kid leaping before they look.

So while Steven Moffatt is thinking about the new Who can I cast a vote that regardless of race, sex and creed, whoever the new Who is going to be, can they just be… well… an adult really? Can we have a grown-up as the next Doctor Who, please?